The top reported proficiency rate is 42% in English language arts. The lowest is 29% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Nellie Hughes Stokes Elementary School
Nellie Hughes Stokes Elementary School sits on Upper King Road in Dover, part of the Caesar Rodney School District. It is a regular public school serving grades one through five, and because it stops at fifth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. The school sits in Delaware's capital city, a place whose civic and historic identity centers on The Green, a colonial-era public square flanked by the Old State House, Legislative Hall, the Delaware Supreme Court, and the Kent County Courthouse. Dover also holds the Delaware State Library, the State Museum, and the State Archives, all open to the public. The Sewell C. Biggs Museum of American Art sits in the historic district, and the John Dickinson Plantation, just south of the city, preserves the childhood home of a Revolutionary-era statesman. Dover Motor Speedway hosts NASCAR races, and the Firefly Music Festival has been held in the speedway's Woodlands. The Dover Mall along the highway corridor serves as the area's only indoor shopping center. The city sits on the St. Jones River.
The school enrolls a moderately sized elementary population for its grade band. Its student body is nearly evenly split between Black and white students, with a Hispanic population that makes up a meaningful but smaller segment, and smaller groups identifying as two or more races or Asian. A very small number of students identify as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. The dataset does not include free-or-reduced-price lunch counts, individualized education program rates, or English learner figures, so those pieces of the school's economic and special-population picture are missing here. Title I status was also not available.
On state assessments, Stokes Elementary shows a mixed but improving academic picture. In the most recent tested year, English language arts proficiency landed above two-fifths of tested students, while math proficiency was a bit lower. Science proficiency, based on the grade tested, was modest. Social studies results, reported separately for fourth grade, were in a similar range. Looking at the longer trend, proficiency in both English and math was considerably higher in the years before the pandemic, dropped sharply during the disrupted testing period, and has been climbing back since. The most recent year represents the strongest recovery point, though both subjects remain below where they stood in the mid-2010s. Participation rate data was not available for the current year's math and English results. When measured against other districts in Kent County, the school's overall proficiency sits above the midpoint among the county's districts, a positioning that reflects steady if incomplete recovery.
The housing market around the school tells a practical story. Home values in the school's zip code sit below both the state and national benchmarks, making this one of the more affordable parts of the region for buyers. Rents are also modest relative to broader state figures. Estimated monthly mortgage costs run higher than typical rents, so renting may offer a lower monthly cost burden than buying at current rates. The broader economic environment features a national unemployment rate that has held steady, and median household income has risen gradually over the past several years.
What the data does not tell us is substantial. There is no chronic absenteeism figure, no discipline report, no staffing or class-size data, and no course-access or program information for this school. The district brief was not available, so any parent-relevant changes or strategic priorities from Caesar Rodney School District are not reflected here. A parent evaluating Stokes Elementary would want to ask the school directly about its supports for students below proficiency, its approach to the upper elementary grades where testing occurs, and how it serves students who may need additional academic intervention. The trend line is moving in the right direction, and the school's standing relative to its Kent County peers is solidly middle or above. The gaps in the available data, though, mean the picture is incomplete, and filling those gaps with the school itself would be a worthwhile next step.
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